Court of Conciliation and Arbitration

Luzius Wildhaber of Switzerland was elected Vice-President of the Court by the members of the Bureau at its meeting held on 7 March 2008 in Geneva. He is an arbitrator of the Court and was elected to its Bureau in 2007.

Wildhaber was born in 1937 in Basel. After law studies at the Universities of Basel (Doctor of Law, 1961), Paris, Heidelberg, London and Yale, he was appointed Professor at the University of Fribourg and Basel, where he became Dean of the Law Faculty (1992-94). He actively participated in the complete revision of the Swiss Federal Constitution.

Wildhaber has been a judge at the Constitutional Court of the Principality of Liechtenstein, the Administrative Tribunal of the Inter-American Development Bank and the European Court of Human Rights (1991-2007). He was elected President of the European Court of Human Rights in 1998 and twice re-elected to this position (2001 and 2004).

Since his retirement in January 2007, he has been a visiting Professor at the Universities in Basel, Lucerne, St. Gallen, Bilgi (Istanbul), Ritsumeikan (Kyoto) and Yale Law School. He is the author of numerous books and articles, and has co-edited several publications, as well as receiving many awards and honours.